I am convinced that the iPhone 3Gs is impacting the world of online video. In the last 6 months YouTube reported a 1700% increase in video uploads to the site via mobile devices. When the iPhone 3Gs was released, uploads began increasing 400% per day! And why not? It's insanely easy to capture, edit, and upload on the device!
From the YouTube blog:
This growth represents three things coming together: new video-enabled phones on the market, improvements to the upload flow when you post a video to YouTube from your phone, and a new feature on YouTube that allows your videos to be quickly and effortlessly shared through your social networks. It takes just a minute to connect your YouTube account to your Facebook, Twitter and Google Reader accounts. Complete a simple, one-time connection on our upload page to allow all your friends and followers to get a real-time stream of your uploads to YouTube, which can be essential in this age of citizen reporting and ubiquitous sharing.
When the iPod Touch is released with a camera and the ability to capture, edit, and upload video via WiFi (which I think is inevitable), the numbers will swell even more.
So now is the time for educators to come up to speed with video to capitalize on cool to create curricular cognition. And what better time than during the summer? Take those family videos and learn how to edit them and get them on the web. Then extend this learning to your teaching.
How easy is it exactly? Well, using only the iPhone 3Gs, here is a short 12 second video I shot of the cat this morning. It took about 10 seconds to edit the ending (cut the part when he jumped down off of the tub) and 10 seconds to upload it to YouTube. And then I took another 15 seconds to go to YouTube to get the embed code and paste it into this blog post. Total production time from start to posted: less than 1 minute!
But, you will not use this tool in your teaching because it is dead easy to implement. You will use it because the educational application of video production for learning can empower the highest levels of authentic engagement, critical thinking, problem solving, learning about learning, and focusing on curriculum based essential questions all neatly bundled up in one powerful learning by careful design package. The challenge isn't technical, it's designing the learning around the new form of engagement.
As I have time, I hope to post more about the video upload process. Using YouTube makes what I did this morning effortless. But you have many other other options as well.
